Using arable land to grow crops for conversion to ICE type fuel is great idea for an alien planet without fossil fuels...well no, not really, not even then. Wasting arable land in such folly on earth is best summed up by Gen, Clements McAuliffe one word response to the Germans at Bastogne, "Nuts!"

> As part of the aviation industry’s efforts to use biofuels to drive down its carbon footprint
Before worrying about carbon footprint, shouldn't they should worry about dwindling oil production and rising costs?
> Boeing is hoping that “emerging technologies” will allow fuel to be extracted from the remainder of the plant in the coming years.
How does it compare to kerosene in terms of energy density and production cost?

Hydrogen, hydrogen, HYDROGEN!!!! Bio-fuels are a dangerous red herring.

Or you could just grow industrial hemp and get your food right along with your fuel and have as well fiber for paper, cloth, car body panels, rope, structural timber replacement for housing and thousands of other proven products.

Joe, Don't bogart that idea... Pass it around dude!

And what's wrong with algae?

I'll try to answer some of the above questions: What's wrong with algae / hemp / fosil fuels? - Algae doesn't grow where tobacco grows without considerable infrastructure improvements (like grow tanks) and knowledge; - Hemp has all sorts of social and political ill-will and misunderstandings. Growing it at scale causes unrest among various groups; - fossil fuels will eventually run out and release more carbon than perhaps poor people would like (rich people will be able to buy their way out of any global warming issues they may face).
Hydrogen: I assume you are being funny. Bio-fuels (and others) are essentially a form of hydrogen. IE: Hydrogen bound to one or more carbons which form an easy to handle and transport liquid. Raw Hydrogen is a tricky customer to deal with.
So why tobacco? I don't think this was adequately addressed in the article so you had to sort of use your thinking organ. Do we want smoking? no (and by we I mean society at large, not addicts). But if for example we banned smoking world-wide overnight, what would become of the tobacco farmers and companies? Apparently in South Africa there are a lot of tobacco farmers that rely on cigarettes to make a living. So what if growing non-nicotine tobacco was more profitable but required no additional infrastructure or knowledge? Well the tobacco farmers could easily switch crop and governments could make smoking harder. The tobacco companies could produce bio-fuel for aviation instead of cancer sticks to fill our hospitals. Sounds like a big win. Does that scenario not sound feasible? I think it would be brilliant.

I think Scion is onto something. I think it is a better use of the plant that smoking it, IMO.

First off you would have to smoke a LOT of industrial hemp to get high, you would destroy your lungs.
Bio fuels are a dead end. Its not just the land, food, energy wasted, etc but the tons and tons of fertilizer and pesticides dumped on these crops that then run into the water sheds. If you are growing food than you can weigh the cost but for fuel?
By the time we begin to run out of fossils I assume they will figure out how to superheat propellent to plasma for thrust or some other technology. Heck, just perfecting electric cars may cause a crash in the remaining fossils so that what remains will be extended for another 100 years to allow even greater tech advancements.

If you want bio fuel go with bio-methane or bio-syn-gas and Fischer–Tropsch to room temperature liquid.
Hydrogen is just ludicrous.